SK Innovation is to start work on a factory in Poland to manufacture lithium-ion battery separators (LiBS) and ceramic coated separators (CCS) for electric vehicle batteries in Europe.
The South Korean group will break ground on the plant site in Województwo Śląskie in southern Poland in the third quarter of 2019— and expects to begin mass production in the third quarter of 2021.
SK Innovation intends to invest €335 million (US$378m) to realise four LiBS production units and three CCS production units on the 270,000 square metre site.
When completed, the plant “will produce 340 million sq m of separators per year”, the company said.
The announcement comes after SK Innovation said it also planned to establish a separators plant in China towards its goal of taking the company’s combined annual production capacity up to 1.2 billion sq m, from the 360 million sq m of LiBS currently produced at its facility in Jeungpyeong, South Korea.
SK Innovation’s entry into Poland follows in the footsteps of Korean battery peer LG Chem, which is building a second battery production facility in the country to supplement production at its existing Kobierzyce facility in southwestern Poland.
Meanwhile, SK Innovation has broken ground on a US$1.1bn electric vehicle batteries production plant in the US state of Georgia.
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